Wednesday, July 31, 2013

A stunning middle-grade debut--full of heart, humor, and nonstop action!

It's tough to be thirteen, especially when somebody's trying to kill you.

Not that Egg's life was ever easy, growing up on sweaty, pirate-infested Deadweather Island with no company except an incompetent tutor and a pair of unusually violent siblings who hate his guts.

But when Egg's father hustles their family off on a mysterious errand to fabulously wealthy Sunrise Island, then disappears with the siblings in a freak accident, Egg finds himself a long-term guest at the mansion of the glamorous Pembroke family and their beautiful, sharp-tongued daughter Millicent. Finally, life seems perfect.

Until someone tries to throw him off a cliff.

Suddenly, Egg's running for his life in a bewildering world of cutthroat pirates, villainous businessmen, and strange Native legends. The only people who can help him sort out the mystery of why he's been marked for death are Millicent and a one-handed, possibly deranged cabin boy.

Come along for the ride. You'll be glad you did.

AN EXCERPT FROM DEADWEATHER AND SUNRISE:

Chapter 1

Nobody lived on Deadweather but us and the pirates. It wasn’t hard to understand why. For one thing, the weather was atrocious. Eleven months out of twelve, it was brutally hot and humid, with no wind at all, so on a bad day the air felt like a hot, soggy blanket smothering you from all sides.

And the other month was September, which meant hurricanes.

Then there was the volcano. It hadn’t actually blown in ages, but it belched smoke and shook the earth enough to scare away anybody who might’ve overlooked the pirates and the weather. The only reason it didn’t scare me, even though plenty of things do, was because I’d been born and raised halfway up its slope and didn’t know any different.

That’s how I felt about the pirates, too. There were two kinds on Deadweather: the normal ones, who hung around down in Port Scratch, drinking and getting into knife fights whenever they weren’t off raiding Cartager gold ships; and the busted-down, broken ones, who’d lost too many limbs or eyes or organs to crew a ship, but not enough to kill them outright.TO FINISH READING THIS EXCERPT, VISIT THE PENGUIN PUBLISHING WEBSITE HERE.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (TAKEN FROM HIS WEBSITE "BIO"):

Hi! I’m Geoff Rodkey. I write things for a living: mostly books, movies, and TV shows…but I’ve also written for magazines, newspapers, video games, web sites, standup comedians, and even two United States Senators. Although at least one of them would prefer that I don’t mention that.

I’m currently at work on the final book in my middle grade adventure-comedy-mystery-coming-of-age trilogy, The Chronicles of Egg. The first two installments, Deadweather and Sunrise and New Lands, are about as much fun as you can have between two covers of a book, and I’m not just saying that because I wrote them.

But as awesome as the Egg books are, I’m probably better known for my movies – Daddy Day Care, RV, The Shaggy Dog…

Although if you’re under twelve years old, I suspect you’re more familiar with a Disney Channel TV movie I wrote called Good Luck Charlie, It’s Christmas…

And if you’re over thirty-five, it might actually be the “Cow Tipping” episode of MTV’s Beavis and Butt-head…

Or, if you’re a political junkie, you might have caught my brief, Emmy-nominated tenure as a co-writer of the “Strange Bedfellows” segments on Comedy’s Central’s Politically Incorrect, featuring Al Franken and Arianna Huffington (this was in 1996, way back when Arianna was still a Republican).

And if you went to Freeport High School in Freeport, Illinois between 1986 and 1988, I think you’ll agree with me that some of the best things I ever wrote were the humor pieces I published in our school newspaper, the Pretz News, which is where I got my start as a writer.

Pretz News might seem like an odd name, but it’s not nearly as odd as our school mascot. We were the Freeport Pretzels.Why? I have no idea. It’s kind of cute, I guess. But it definitely doesn’t intimidate rival sports teams.

Want to know more? (Not about pretzels, but about the things I’ve written?) Click HERE for an interview about the Egg books with kidlit blogger Monica Edinger.

PRAISE FOR DEADWEATHER AND SUNRISE:

Amazon Best Books of the Year 2012

Chicago Public Library Best of the Best 2012

“This is a rip-roaring debut… I highly recommend you grab a copy… The best way I can describe it is Lemony Snicket meets Pirates of the Caribbean, with a sprinkling of Tom Sawyer for good measure.”—RICK RIORDAN, New York Times bestselling author of the Percy Jackson series

“. . . a high-seas adventure in the grandest tradition, featuring epic maritime battles, elusive hidden treasures, tender romance, and of course, pirates—lots and lots of pirates. The fast-paced swashbuckling will surely satisfy fans of adventure, but it's really Egg's narration that makes this pirate story rise above its counterparts. Wittily observant and self-deprecating, Egg relays the series of absurd events that precede his escape from Deadweather with a fair amount of humor, while his decision to avenge the deaths of his family—despite their mistreatment of him—lends the tale a certain nobility.”--STARRED REVIEW FROM BCCB

“Self-deprecating and funny, Egg’s first-person account is compelling, and the dialogue and vivid setting, as well as the full cast of quirky characters, make it easy to get lost in this adventure.”--KIRKUS REVIEWS

“In this rousing debut novel . . . Egg’s struggle to stay alive takes him from one death-defying scenario to the next with breakneck speed … the overall effect is more comedic than terrifying, as Rodkey combines humor and adventure.”--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“[O]ur hero’s first-person sassiness, smarts, and romantic frustration . . . are absolutely entertaining. Along with some good and gory descriptions (after all, pirates really aren’t that nice), this introduction to the Chronicles of Egg series is pure fun.”--BOOKLIST

SOME OTHER WORKBY AUTHOR GEOFF RODKEY:

GIVEAWAY

I AM EXCITED TO HAVE ONE COPY

OF THIS BOOK FROM THE EXCITING NEW

SERIES TO GIVE AWAY TO A LUCKY READER

--U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
---INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TOCOUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY:COMMENT ON WHAT YOU READ ABOVE ABOUT DEADWEATHER AND SUNRISE THAT MADE YOU WANT TO WIN THIS BOOK, AND DON'T FORGET YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS

+1 MORE ENTRY:BLOG AND/OR TWEET ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND COME BACK HERE AND LEAVE ME YOUR LINK

+1 MORE ENTRY:COMMENT ON SOMETHING YOU FIND INTERESTING AT GEOFF RODKEY'S WEBSITE HERE

+1 MORE ENTRY: COMMENT
ON ONE WAY YOU FOLLOW MY BLOG. IF YOU FOLLOW MORE THAN
ONE WAY, YOU CAN COMMENT SEPARATELY AND EACH WILL
COUNT AS AN ENTRY

+1 MORE ENTRY:COMMENT
ON A CURRENT GIVEAWAY THAT YOU HAVE ENTERED ON MY
BLOG. IF YOU ENTERED MORE THAN ONE, YOU MAY COMMENT
SEPARATELY FOR EACH TO RECEIVE MORE ENTRIES

I've recently gotten interested in middle school stuff so that I could keep up with my nephews and what they are reading. This sounds like something my older nephew would like. rosita DOT p DOT mariani AT gmail DOT com